Posted
by
Zonk
on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:41PM
from the jumping-into-the-fray dept.

eldavojohn writes "HP has acquired VoodooPC, a high-end gaming PC provider who's former co-owner will now be the chief technologist of HP's newly formed gaming PC division. Back in May, we saw Dell acquire Alienware. Are gaming machines important options to consumers, or is it just plain profitable? Who will we see enter the gaming market next? Apple?"

HP used to be a great name for all kinds of hardware before Carly took the reigns. She then came up with these wonderous ideas that got rid of good ideas and filled them with more and more sh!t. It takes a while for that to be cleaned up.

I wish they'd just to back to what they were good at. My pre-Carly LaserJets are still cranking out pages that are as good as if they were brand new. I couldn't wait to get rid of my post-Carly Athlon PC because it kept breaking (needed four parts replacements in thr

For most people, a "gaming maching" is a PlayStation of XBox, not a high-end PC. There is a relatively small sub-set of gamers who are willing to shell out large amounts of money for high end PCs optimized for gaming, but those machines are non-existant to the vast majority of computer users (and computer buyers). There just aren't that many people who care enough about gaming to spend that kind of money on it. The niche is profitable, but not huge compared to the overall PC market.

First, anybody who is "always hearing about huge LAN parties and tournaments" is NOT in the mainstream of average Americans, so what you hear about has little relevance to drawing conclusions about the market. It's just geeks and hard-core gamers who even know that such things as LAN parties exist.Second, the hard-core gamers who are willing to spend huge amounts of money on a high-end PC are the very people who are obsessive enough to be frequent participants in such events. More casuals gamers (which incl

I disagree that "gaming machine" = console, but I do agree that there is a small niche of gamers willing to pay THAT kind of money for an uber gaming system.

PC's have been my gaming machines since 1984. I'm considering buying a new machine for Christmas, but I don't plan on spending more than $1300. I'd be curious to see Alienware's change in sales since Dell's acquisition or how this acquisition of VoodooPC might affect HP's numbers.

If "gaming machine" == console, and all three consoles have a secret bootloader, and none of the three console makers is willing to talk to a developer who has no experience, then how are game programmers supposed to break into the industry and get noticed by a development studio?

Not off-the-shelf PCs. They might want some strange piece of hardware that VoodooPC or another outfit won't provide, or they bight want "better quality" components, a lot of fancy case designs come to mind. In fact, I would argue that gamers probably make up the majority of the DIY and hobbyist markets. However, the high price of the PS3 coupled with the requisite HD display means that PC gaming might seem more attractive than it has in the past, especially with the allure of online games like World of Warc

As far as I know anyone who is a real PC gaming enthusiast custom builds their machine. It is part of the culture to know exactly what is in your machine and exactly why you chose it over its competitors. If you go and buy some pre-rolled rig you'll never feel like you really own it, you'll just feel like you bought it. Most even insist on putting it all together themselves, to me that's half the fun of owning a gaming PC. With that said, I could imagine if dell or hp or whichever manufacturer we're talking

If you REALLY believe this, then you've never actually built a PC on your own. Out of all of the dozens of PCs that I've owned, either as a new setup or as an upgrade from a previous configuration, I've only ever bought FOUR - my first 12MHz, 286 PC; a Texas Instruments, 25MHz, 486SX laptop; a Gateway of some kind of speed for my wife; and an HP, Athlon 1.4GHz. All of the other dozens of different PCs that I've owned over the past 17 years are my own builds, so I have full confidence in saying that you're

Out of all of the dozens of PCs that I've owned, either as a new setup or as an upgrade from a previous configuration, I've only ever bought FOUR [snip description]. All of the other dozens of different PCs that I've owned over the past 17 years are my own builds

Nice straw man argument. Laptops were never even mentioned in the thread. And I don't know any serious gamer who trusts a laptop to be a viable gaming platform. Maybe that's just a stigma that laptops have as I'm fully aware that Alienware offers gaming laptops, but I have yet to meet a serious gamer who prefers a laptop even to a MicroATX system.

You've just come in here for an argument. Five pounds please. If you want to continue arguing, you have to pay.

It isn't just the time spent building the PC, its the time spent making sure you're building the right PC. I live this stuff, and even I have to spend a few days checking benchmarks and finding all the right parts.

I like building PCs, I've built over a dozen for myself, work, and friends. But, if I had more money than time, I think it would be totally worth having somebody else deal with all of it and just give me the best PC money can buy.

It isn't just the time spent building the PC, its the time spent making sure you're building the right PC. I live this stuff, and even I have to spend a few days checking benchmarks and finding all the right parts.

I like building PCs, I've built over a dozen for myself, work, and friends. But, if I had more money than time, I think it would be totally worth having somebody else deal with all of it and just give me the best PC money can buy.
If you didn't have time to research the components, how exactly

>how exactly could you be sure it was "the best PC money could buy"
>
That is where brand name comes in. I don't know if it is still true, but Falcon Northwest use to make a killer rig. Sure, it costs 2-3 times more then I'm willing to pay but, if I had the money, I would trust them to give me the best.

I live quite close to Voodoo's corporate headquarters and remember back when the company was a small, local system builder. I remember their little classified ad in the Bargain Finder and when their headquarters were in a funky little house. Their exclusive focus on the gaming market is actually relatively recent--for the first decade of its existence Voodoo PCs weren't all visually "tricked out" and weren't all gaming PCs. They used to sell a very cool cube-shaped server on caster wheels (it sported a V